The pre-requisites that were required for my admission to the online accelerated BSN program I will be doing:
- Intro Microbiology
- Human Anatomy
- Human Physiology
- Gen/Bio Chemistry
- Statistics
-Various Humanities (fulfilled by my previous Bachelor's)
-Theology (It's a Catholic university. Some of this is fulfilled by my previous religion minor.)
I've completed all of my pre-reqs except physio which I'm taking this summer online.
Co-requisites (I completed for admission to a different program.. not required to gain admission for this program)
- Human Growth and Development
My favorite pre-reqs were definitely my humanities classes from my undergrad! I also enjoyed Human Growth and Development since its technically a psychology class and I found it interesting.
Stats was... okay. I'm really not big on math and I forced myself to take college algebra my last semester of my first bachelor's degree because I knew I wanted to go back for a nursing degree and some schools require college algebra or subsequent classes. I'm glad I went ahead and took college algebra because I think it helped prepare me for stats.
In my opinion stats was frustrating and time consuming. I took a 300 level (basically intro) stats class. I won't say that the concepts were beyond hard, they just took lots of practice problems and a lot of time. As with most math classes there was a lot of required online homework and it was just incredibly time consuming. But I ended up with a B in the class and I'm happy with that.
My suggestions: Take some preparatory math classes before you take stats, especially if math isn't your strong suit. Talk with an advisor or someone from the math department and ask them what classes they recommend you take to do well in stats. Spend the time studying and doing the problems from the book. Take advantage of ANY extra credit available to you. Also, if you can't find an explanation for something GOOGLE it! I found a lot of tutorials this way.
Intro to Microbiology was definitely not a great class for me. I attended every class, even though all my professor did was read from her prepared powerpoint slides that she gave us ahead of time. This also had a lab component which I found okay, mainly because it was explained really well and had a good lab manual.
I did horribly on the first test (and second too I think) I then realized that maybe I should make notecards for all of the things I was having trouble keeping track of. This helped a bit and I did better on the last two tests. My saving grace in this class was the unknowns we did in lab and a few other worksheets that were easy grades. I managed a C+ (albeit by the skin of my teeth) and this is all I needed for the class to qualify for my program. I was just happy to be done with this thing and not have to take it over.
My suggestions: Don't wait 6 years in between your first college level bio class with a lab and your next one! It definitely makes things harder. Find a study system that works for you. I used notecards, but they're not for everyone.
Anatomy was my most hated/dreaded class. I ended up taking it twice at the other university I was at (where I took the majority of my science pre-reqs). There was SO much information covered in our anatomy class and even after taking the class (and accompanying lab) twice, I still don't think I truly understand/know a fraction of it.
My major problem with this class was that I feel that it was considered a weed-out class at the huge state university I took it at. It was a required pre-req for pretty much any healthcare related major and they used it to see who was really committed to their program. It was totally normal to hear someone say this was their second or third time retaking anatomy (Heck I was obviously one of these people!).
At the university there were only two professors that taught it and they had profoundly different teaching styles. My sister had taken the class before with one teacher and told me she thought she had discovered how to do well in the class. He gave out study guides and she said if you filled them out and studied them the same information would be on the test. I attempted this but was overwhelmed by the serious amounts of information and the study guides for each test would literally be 20 pages long (typed). I ended up with a C- in the class my first time around.
I took it again this spring with the other professor and I found that I liked his lecture style and way of running the class much better. He offered extra credit for one thing! He really did want to help his students learn the material and pass the class. I studied my butt off this semester (although really i felt like I studied my butt off the first time too..) and I ended up with a B- in the class. I wanted to cry with happiness when I finally got my grade.
My suggestions: Find out a way of studying anatomy that works for you. The first semester I tried to fill out pages and pages of study guides by listening to lectures again and bringing the study guides to lecture to fill out. This worked in some ways... I had a good idea of what was going to be on the test, but there was so much information covered by each test that I couldn't find a way to remember it all.
The second time around I had the compendium that went along with our textbook and also the lab manual (both of which were turned in for points/extra credit). The compendium was sort of a bullet points, here's the important stuff outline. I went through and highlighted info I know I needed and added my own basic drawings in the margins. A mentor suggested if you can draw it, you'll hopefully understand it (I think this drawing was more beneficial for lab rather than lecture tests). There were also practice tests that I went through in the compendium for each section.
Example of a compendium page:
For lab: I went to every lab (even though I hated it and my teacher wasn't great). I worked on the lab exercise and tried to use the models. A lot of people took photos of the models so that they could study them at home. We also had our histology slides available to us and I printed these off and would bring them to each lab so that when my teacher went over them on the overhead I could write down things she pointed out and slides she went over (these were the ones that would likely be on the lab exam).
After the first lab exam (which I did horribly on FYI) I came up with some new study methods. I took all of the printed out histo slides and cut them out. I circled areas on them and pasted the photo onto an index card. On the back I wrote down what each section was and what the slide was showing. I think this helped me a TON.
See example:
Front of a Histo note card:
Back of a Histo note card:
See example:
Example of my lab manual. Notice the highlighted lines for each thing I needed to know:
I took the easiest possible chem class (that still qualified) which was a 101 level class. My main complaint about this class was that I felt (and many of my fellow students said the same thing) that this class was wayyy too hard for an intro level chem class. One girl even said she had taken organic chemistry before and was having trouble in this class!!
Regardless, I studied as much as possible, met with my tutor, did practice problems, made notecards of elements, compounds, ion, rules, etc. My teacher gave us practice problems and practice tests before each test and I did all of them (100's of questions) at least once and sometimes twice. I'm fairly certain that having a tutor got me the B in lecture and A- in lab that I ended up with.
My recommendations: For goodness sakes, GET A TUTOR if you can afford it. They are invaluable resources if you have a good one (Look at it like I did.. its either pay a tutor or pay to take the class again. Which is more expensive?). Study as often as you can bear. Do any practice problems (from the book, online, etc) or practice tests that you are given. Print them out, work out the problems, correct your answers, then print them out and do them again. Make flashcards for any small bits of info: element info, compounds, ions, etc.
I'll have to let you know about physiology since I haven't started it yet... I'm also a little scared of the online format... but I've taken online classes before and liked them so I'm hoping that it will be okay.
I hope I've helped some by showing you my struggles in my classes. Leave me a comment if you got specific questions or study methods that you LOVE!
